UNICEF
Nutrition Consultant (Outpatient Care and Community Referral) - Office based/Ugandan nationals only (multiply positions - 3 consultants)
🇺🇬Uganda13 days ago
MidFull TimeEN
Contract Duration – 4.5 months
Working arrangement: office based
UNICEF works in over 190 countries and territories to save children’s lives, defend their rights, and help them fulfill their potential, from early childhood through adolescence.
At UNICEF, we are committed, passionate, and proud of what we do for as long as we are needed. Promoting the rights of every child is not just a job – it is a calling.
UNICEF is a place where careers are built. We offer our staff diverse opportunities for professional and personal development that will help them reinforce a sense of purpose while serving children and communities across the world. We welcome everyone who wants to belong and grow in a diverse and passionate culture, coupled with an attractive compensation and benefits package.
Visit our website to learn more about what we do at UNICEF.
TERMS OF REFERENCE
Uganda is facing a complex and intensifying nutrition humanitarian situation driven by recurrent climate shocks, sustained regional displacement and rising vulnerability. The situation is most acute in Karamoja and refugee hosting districts, where overstretched health and nutrition systems, compounded by therapeutic food pipeline breaks, are increasing mortality risks among children under five.
In Karamoja, child wasting stands at 15.1 per cent, more than three times the national average and above the international emergency threshold. An estimated 128,000 children aged 6–59 months are acutely malnourished, including 28,000 with Severe Acute Malnutrition (SAM), reflecting a continued deterioration and the worst recorded since 2023. Moroto, Kotido and Kaabong districts are classified as IPC Acute Malnutrition Phase 4, characterized by elevated morbidity, mortality and compromised food consumption. A concurrent measles outbreak has further exacerbated risks, with SAM contributing to approximately 70 per cent of reported child deaths. In parallel, nutrition conditions in refugee settlements have worsened, with Global Acute Malnutrition increasing to 7.8 per cent, up from 5.4 per cent in 2024. Reduced funding, constrained service capacity and imminent pipeline breaks threaten continuity of care.
To provide lifesaving and timely nutrition treatment within existing health facilities in Karamoja and refugees communities, UNICEF is engaging a consultant to support the identification and treatment of children with severe wasting.
The purpose of this consultancy is to provide lifesaving technical assistance to high burden districts to respond to humanitarian nutrition situation in Karamoja. The consultants will directly work with the district local governments, health facilities and communities to ensure timely and smooth mass screening, integrated outreaches, identification and timely referrals of child wasting cases for treatment.
Key Responsibilities:
• Mass screening: Provide plans and engage DLGs and health facilities for community mass screening
• Nutrition outreaches: Conduct integrated outreaches by engaging health facilities and other stakeholders in IPC phase 4 districts in Karamoja region.
• Detection and referral of cases: Analyze screening data and engage DLGs to ensure children identified with child wasting are timely referred for treatment.
• Update, documentation and reporting: Provide weekly update of the admission and treatment of child wasting. This includes weekly update, ensuring treatment information is updated in Health Management Information System, documentation and reporting of activities in line with the sector requirements.
If you would like to know more about this consultancy, please review the complete Terms of Reference here: Nutrition Consultant.pdf
Minimum requirements:
For every Child, you demonstrate...
UNICEF’s Core Values of Care, Respect, Integrity, Trust and Accountability and Sustainability (CRITAS) underpin everything we do and how we do it. Get acquainted with Our Values Charter: UNICEF Values
UNICEF promotes and advocates for the protection of the rights of every child, everywhere, in everything it does and is mandated to support the realization of the rights of every child, including those most disadvantaged, and our global workforce must reflect the diversity of those children. The UNICEF family is committed to include everyone, irrespective of their race/ethnicity, disability, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion, nationality, socio-economic background, minority, or any other status.
UNICEF encourages applications from all qualified candidates, regardless of gender, nationality, religious or ethnic backgrounds, and from people with disabilities, including neurodivergence. We offer reasonable accommodation for persons with disabilities. throughout the recruitment process. If you require any accommodation, please submit your request through the accessibility email button on the UNICEF Careers webpage Accessibility | UNICEF. Should you be shortlisted, please get in touch with the recruiter directly to share further details, enabling us to make the necessary arrangements in advance.
UNICEF does not hire candidates who are married to children (persons under 18). UNICEF has a zero-tolerance policy on conduct that is incompatible with the aims and objectives of the United Nations and UNICEF, including sexual exploitation and abuse, sexual harassment, abuse of authority and discrimination based on gender, nationality, age, race, sexual orientation, religious or ethnic background or disabilities. UNICEF is committed to promote the protection and safeguarding of all children. All selected candidates will, therefore, undergo rigorous reference and background checks, and will be expected to adhere to these standards and principles. Background checks will include the verification of academic credential(s) and employment history. Selected candidates may be required to provide additional information to conduct a background check, and selected candidates with disabilities may be requested to submit supporting documentation in relation to their disability confidentially.
Qualified candidates are invited to submit the following documents via the online recruitment portal, TMS (Talent Management System):
Remarks:
UNICEF does not charge a processing fee at any stage of its recruitment, selection, and hiring processes (i.e., application stage, interview stage, validation stage, or appointment and training). UNICEF will not ask for applicants’ bank account information.
All UNICEF positions are advertised, and only shortlisted candidates will be contacted and advance to the next stage of the selection process.
Additional information about working for UNICEF can be found here.